Hi-Res Output Option

If you’re using a Retina Mac, your screenshots will be high resolution as well — in fact, twice as large on each dimension than non-Retina screens. However, there are times when this image will be too large, and you’d like a smaller version. If you’re using the Drag Me tab (super handy!) to put your screenshots into documents, email, Skype and other places, you can now choose to export them in lower resolution.

When you screenshot on a Retina Mac or open a high resolution image into Skitch, you will see a new Hi-Res icon appear on the right that lets you know your image is high resolution.

Click the file type dropdown in the bottom left corner of your window to check or uncheck Hi-Res images. Unchecking will reduce your image from 144 DPI (Retina) to 72 DPI (non-Retina). This will not affect the size of the image when you sync it to Evernote – the images in your account will remain at the same quality with which they were snapped.

The release also includes a number of important bug-fixes, making Skitch more reliable.

Try out the latest update! Let us know what you think in the comments below.

]]>https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2013/12/13/quick-updates-for-skitch-mac/feed/7Skitch 2.7 for Mac Gets an Improved Footer, New Toolbars, and Updates for OS X Maverickshttps://blog.evernote.com/blog/2013/10/24/skitch-2-7-for-mac-gets-an-updated-look/
https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2013/10/24/skitch-2-7-for-mac-gets-an-updated-look/#commentsThu, 24 Oct 2013 16:29:40 +0000http://blog.evernote.com/?p=36782Skitch is all about making it fast and simple to communicate your ideas. In our latest update for Mac, we’re taking a big step forward with major improvements to the interface and also support for the new OS X Mavericks operating system. Let’s take a look at some of the great new updates in Skitch 2.7:

When you open the app, the new annotation toolbar is one of the first of these improvements that you will notice. All of your tools are neatly lined up on the edge of your screen. When you choose a tool with multiple sub-options, a menu slides out to display them. The new toolbar design keeps everything cleanly tucked away to keep the focus on your content.

Pinning

Whenever a submenu slides in, you’ll see a pin icon at the top. Click the pin and the submenu will stay in view. This is great for the style menus so that you can change the colors and sizes of multiple elements on the screen without very much clicking.

Footer Focus

We’ve done a little reorganizing in this update to make navigating the app a more intuitive process. Everything you need to change the attributes of your image such as name, file type and size, have been moved down to the bottom edge of the screen. When everything is in one place, It’s much easier to make quick changes to your image before you share or save it.

New Icon and Brand

We first introduced our beautiful new brand on Skitch for iOS. With this update, it has made its way to Mac. You’ll notice flashes of the new brand throughout the app, and here’s the sleek new app icon for your dock.

Improvements and Fixes

With the introduction of OS X Mavericks, we’ve made a number of updates to the app that improve Skitch’s performance on your Mac. In 2.7, the app’s screenshot capabilities on multiple displays are much more powerful, and Skitch now manages power more efficiently than ever. We’ve also fixed a number of bugs for a better-polished, faster experience all around.

Try the newest version of Skitch for Mac today from the App Store or on our site. We hope you love all the updates in Skitch 2.7 – let us know what you think in the comments!

]]>https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2013/10/24/skitch-2-7-for-mac-gets-an-updated-look/feed/5Skitch for Mac Update: New Features for Faster Annotationshttps://blog.evernote.com/blog/2013/06/25/skitch-for-mac-update-new-features-for-faster-annotations/
https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2013/06/25/skitch-for-mac-update-new-features-for-faster-annotations/#commentsTue, 25 Jun 2013 14:29:48 +0000http://blog.evernote.com/?p=34022Skitch is all about making visual communication quick and effortless. Our latest version for Mac has some exciting new updates that make Skitch even better at achieving this goal. Let’s take a closer look at at Skitch 2.6.

Sometimes you need a little more space at the edges of your image. Adjustable Canvas lets you add as much room as you need to easily point out what’s important, and it’s incredibly simple to use.

To add extra room in the margins, just hit the plus sign on any edge. Or even better – if you annotate beyond the edge of your image, the canvas will automatically expand to give you more space. The Crop/Resize tool can also be used to add a specific amount of margin – just stretch the guides to the dimensions you need and click Apply. Please note that Adjustable Canvas is only available for images and screenshots in this release.

More Precise Shapes

Annotating your images with shapes is great for drawing attention to an area within your image, but sometimes you need finer control. In this release, shapes have a much smaller minimum size, allowing you to use them with greater precision. As you circle a link on a web page or draw a rectangle where you would like your new logo placed, you can be sure to include only the information you intended in your shape.

Neater Annotations

You can now hold down the Shift key while drawing shapes to create perfect squares and circles, and also while drawing arrows and lines to make them snap to 45 degree rotations. It’s a great feature for communicating design changes – when straight lines are always straight and arrows are all at the same angle, annotations are cleaner and easier to read.

Speedier Screensnap

Our team is always looking for ways to make Skitch even faster to use, and this time we’ve added an option to make Screen Snaps more streamlined. In the app’s preferences, you can hide the advanced screenshot options panel by unchecking Show advanced options after a screen snap. This results in a screen snap that takes only one click – so you can get right to annotating it in an instant.

Skitch PNGs

Skitch now creates a special type of re-editable PNG file. While it will appear as a normal image in an email or document, it can be opened and edited in Skitch. With Skitch PNGs the people you’re working with can quickly adjust annotations to add their two cents’ worth, or directly copy text annotations to incorporate your changes.

Skitch 2.6 for Mac is full of improvements across the app that result in a smoother, more stable experience. We’re proud to bring you this latest version of Skitch, and we hope you love using it as much as we do. Let us know what you think!

If you or someone in a key role were to take a sick day or a vacation, would someone else be ready to pick up the slack? Would a new hire be able to learn a specific task without you sitting next to them and walking them through it? Or what if you just want to save yourself the headache of remembering a lengthy process the next time you need to get it done?

Documenting important tasks that keep your business moving forward is a great practice for professionals, whether you work on a team or are trying to be a more productive individual. Keeping notes about your workflow makes it a lot easier to remember how to do things, share your tasks with others, and make sure that everyone understands what needs to be done and exactly how to do it. It also makes things a lot easier when the unexpected occurs – when your processes are written down, someone else can easily fill-in.

Here are a few ways I use Evernote, Skitch, and Clarify to help me document different kinds of workflows:

Documenting Simple Procedures

Evernote is a great place to keep non-screen-based workflows written down, such as procedures for follow-up phone calls to clients, or steps on the computer that don’t need detailed explanation, like sending an email. For these types of workflows, I use the checkbox and numbered list features to outline specific steps, then add text to further explain items, if needed.

Documenting Complicated Workflows

For any workflow where someone needs to complete detailed actions on a computer, pictures are always better than words. The idea behind documenting your processes and workflow is to save time; using a combination of text and images can help minimize confusion so that others are able to complete the correct steps quickly and efficiently. There are two ways I’d recommend documenting this type of workflow:

Skitch + Evernote

Skitch lets you grab a screenshot, annotate it, and send it directly to Evernote for a simple way to document, store, and share simple screen-based processes. It’s often hard to remember exactly what every screen in every application does or what every icon means. Instead of struggling to figure it out each time, you can take a screenshot and use Skitch to highlight all the details you need. And, if you store it in Evernote, all your notes on the process will be available to you or a teammate with a simple search. The combination of Skitch + Evernote is great for documenting a single screen or a single step in detail.

Clarify + Evernote

Clarify (available in the Evernote Trunk) is a great tool for documenting multi-step workflows on your computer. With Clarify, you can take multiple screenshots, annotate each one, organize them into a series of steps, and add additional text to further explain each step. Once you’ve created the entire workflow document, you can save it directly to your Evernote account for collaboration or sharing. A good example of when you might want to use Clarify is in explaining how to send out an email newsletter, which usually involves a number of critical steps.

Once you’ve documented your processes you can then store them in a Shared Notebook, then set view, modify and share permissions for each person your share the notebook with.

Or, if you’re using Evernote Business, add them to a notebook in your Business Library so that anyone you work with can access them when needed. In my business, I’ve created notes for using our CRM tool, accounting software, and even how to post an item to our blog at www.CustomLivingSolutions.com – each of these processes has many steps and would be hard to explain with just words!

Don’t forget to check out my new book, Evernote @ Work! It’s available in the Trunk, and it’s loaded with ways you can use Evernote in your daily work to make things easier, more effective, more collaborative, and more productive for you and your company.

Do you use Evernote as part of your daily workflow? Tell us about it in the comments!

Bio

Parker Holcomb, an entrepreneur and longtime Evernote user, shares some ways that Evernote and Skitch help him grow and run his storage and shipping business, All College Storage, as well as develop his newest company and app, eHighLighter.

Parker’s Quick Tip: Note links nested in a checklist can help you stay on top of the more detailed tasks or processes in your life by creating a quick and easy information hierarchy. Check out my GTD system with nested Note Links below!

I Use Skitch and Evernote for…

Running My Business

I use both Evernote and Skitch religiously to help me manage everything about All College Storage. From training new employees in business operations to shared task management, the apps are a key component in keeping me connected to my employees and in managing the work that needs to be done. Here are some examples of the ways I use Evernote and Skitch to be more productive at All College Storage.

Evernote for Task Management

The company’s slogan is “student run, professionally done,” which means I depend on my 16 student employees (called Campus Presidents) to help manage the business on the ground and provide great customer service. I use Evernote Shared Notebooks to help them stay on track with the company’s goals while managing a lot of the day-to-day operations independently. This gives them the ability to “own” their campus presence and share in the entrepreneurial experience, while allowing me to keep track of important milestones.

To manage all of this, I’ve started a central GTD system which includes a checklist of everything that needs to be completed, organized by type of task and priority. I use Note Links for each item in the checklist to connect to more information and notes about each individual task and to help me manage the completion of tasks. For example, each school we service appears as a Note Link, and clicking on it reveals a shared note with a more detailed list of tasks that my Campus President will check off when they finish.

Because Evernote is available for almost every device, my employees can access this information whether they are at their desk or on the ground organizing a pack, which makes me feel confident that I am always up to date with what’s happening in my business at any given time.

Skitch for Training

Even though I share a lot of documents from my account with my employees to help them learn different parts of the business, it’s often much easier for me to share detailed information with a simple Skitch image. For this reason, Skitch has become central to my training process. From the back-end of our payment system to the packing map for a given school, it’s much faster and simpler to show my Campus Presidents what I mean by adding shapes, arrows, and text to communicate the information visually with Skitch.

Skitch makes it easy for me to create materials that Campus Presidents can use to teach others our system. This is really helpful in scaling my business, as they need to bring on a lot of contract laborers and train them in best practices for packing and organizing the trucks. By simply sharing a couple of Skitch images that detail how our system works, my Campus Presidents have the tools they need to get their contractors up to speed in no time.

Developing my App

In addition to my work managing ACS, I’m developing eHighLighter, a personal research assistant app that integrates with Evernote and brings eBook benefits to paper sources. It’s now available in the Trunk! With it, you can take a picture of a book, then highlight and transcribe the text in the image to create searchable annotations and citations. These tools make organizing research a breeze.

Skitch for Sharing Ideas

Throughout the process of building eHighLighter, Skitch has been really useful in communications with my developer. If it weren’t for Skitch, describing what I want certain buttons to accomplish or mapping out idea flows would require sending dozens of emails back and forth. With Skitch, I only need to mark up an image of the home screen with text and arrows, drop the image into an email. Building an app requires a lot of work, but annotating with Skitch has made the process much more efficient than it would have been otherwise.

Evernote for Organizing Large Projects

Evernote also plays a critical role in helping me manage the development process. All the information I need to make sure I don’t stray too far from the development roadmap is easy for the whole team to access in a Shared Notebook, where I save feature summaries so that we have concrete goals for each version and we never miss out on any key pieces. It’s also helpful to share idea flows and organize my thinking around different features, and because I can access it from anywhere, whenever an idea strikes me, I can immediately capture it and share it with my team.

How are you using Evernote and Skitch to help manage and build your business? Leave your comments below!

]]>https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/12/26/skitch-and-evernote-for-entrepreneurship/feed/5Skitch for Mac Gets A Menu Bar Helperhttps://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/10/19/skitch-for-mac-gets-a-menu-bar-helper/
https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/10/19/skitch-for-mac-gets-a-menu-bar-helper/#commentsFri, 19 Oct 2012 19:59:44 +0000http://blog.evernote.com/?p=23582
We have some exciting news for our Skitch for Mac users today. The latest update (2.0.2) includes a Skitch Menu Bar Helper which lets you take screenshots and use keyboard shortcuts even when Skitch isn’t running.

There are two ways to use Skitch from the menu bar. You can either click on the heart icon and choose the option you want, or you can simply use one of the keyboard shortcuts to take a screenshot of the entire screen, or just a portion of it.

In addition to the Menu Bar Helper, we also added some nice text editing improvements and made the app more reliable.

Availability

This update is currently available as a direct download from our site. If you downloaded Skitch from the Mac App Store, then your update should be available very soon. If you would prefer not to wait, then drag Skitch from the applications folder into your trash, and download the app from our site.

]]>https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/10/19/skitch-for-mac-gets-a-menu-bar-helper/feed/25Skitch for Mac Update: You Asked, We Listenedhttps://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/09/28/skitch-for-mac-update-you-asked-we-listened/
https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/09/28/skitch-for-mac-update-you-asked-we-listened/#commentsFri, 28 Sep 2012 19:28:52 +0000http://blog.evernote.com/?p=22617We’ve been listening closely to all of the great feedback and suggestions from the community since last week’s launch of the redesigned Skitch 2.0 for Mac. For our first update (2.0.1), we made sure to incorporate as many of those requests as possible.

Choose Your File Type

The Drag Me tab on the bottom of the Skitch window makes it incredibly easy to share your comments, ideas and annotations with friends and colleagues. Just grab the tab and drag the image into an email, your desktop or anywhere else.

In this update, we’ve added a file type selector into the Drag Me tab. This lets you choose the file type (PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, BMP) for the resulting file. Choose what you want and the image that you drop will be in that format.

Smarter Screen Snap

Whenever you snap your screen, Skitch pops up a confirmation that lets you modify your selected area or change it to specific dimensions. Very often, the area that you selected initially is the area that you want, so we now place the Capture button of the popup wherever your mouse happens to be. A quick second click gets the job done.

Improved Sync Options

In this update, we’re giving you more control over the Evernote sync. In the Sync Preferences, there’s now a dropdown next to Save Skitch Notes to Evernote. The options are:

Always: Whenever you create a new Skitch note, the previous one is saved and synced to Evernote

Ask: Whenever you create a new Skitch note, you will be asked whether to sync the note with Evernote

Never ask: Whenever you create a new Skitch note, the previous one is discarded and replaced with the new one

When you choose either Ask or Never Ask, a Save button appears at the top of the Skitch window. If you want to save your Skitch notes to Evernote, just click Save.

Flip and Rotate

There’s a new Image menu that lets you flip and rotate your Skitch notes either clockwise or counterclockwise. Every one of these functions also gets a keyboard shortcut.

Flip: SHIFT + CMD + F

Rotate clockwise: CMD + R

Rotate counterclockwise: SHIFT + CMD + R

Multi-select in the Library

The Library, those four squares in the top right corner, is your window into Skitch notes that are synchronized with Evernote. We enabled multi-select in the Library so that you can easily delete unwanted images.

New Keyboard Shortcuts

We’ve added a new keyboard shortcut — Command + / — that makes sharing a URL to a Skitch note quick and easy. This shortcut shares the note publicly and places the URL to that note into your clipboard. Then, you simply paste that URL into an IM, email, blog post, or forum and you’re done.

Change Arrow Directions

By default, when you draw an arrow in Skitch, the mouse cursor is attached to the arrowhead. Many people prefer to draw their arrows in the opposite direction, tail first. Now you can do that by holding down the Option key as you draw the arrow.

More improvements

We’ve made a bunch of other improvements to the app and many more are on the way. Thanks everyone for your great, constructive comments. We’re listening. We’ve also made the old version of Skitch available for those that want it. Stay tuned, our app to help you communicate and share your ideas visually is just getting started.